The Scarlet Letter

The startlingly deep prick releasing the velvety warmth of deep iron-scented blood made the muscles in my jaw quiver and tighten. Through pursed lips and slippery skin I exhaled and begin to stitch the vestal sutures on my scarlet A. Long before this reckless perforation, I had carefully studied and selected the object of my design. For years, I had contemplated his beauty, his strong clean lines and hard pulsating edges pushed asunder by the jolting slash streaking across his center which caused all symmetry to be tossed out into a hidden world that was filled with conflicting emotions.

Covetousness and loathing were the foundation of my handiwork long before the needle was carefully run through with the deception of silky fragile floss. In the best of times the object of one’s design is well thought out, chosen for sound and logical reasons. Designs that are dependable, easy to work, logical, and above all meet the expectations of the society who is always judging your end result. No, my design was more happenstance a result of wanting what someone else once had tasted. A leftovers design – still palatable but once bitten into reveals a residue of unsavory crustiness formed around the edges. At first I had a grave distaste at the sinewy toughness, and yet I kept chewing away like a crazed heroin addict until I discovered the deep warm center filled with a dichotomy of honeyed goodness and salty bile. Deep endless pools of salty and sweet boiling hot and ready to be poured upon the pristine white linens of my young eager heart.

To most the A seems an innocuous creature but I discerned that beneath his barnacle-like façade lived a deep old soul. The A’s suppressed finely tuned intellect filled me with a yearning to be wrapped up within its strong unwavering lines. Instinct screamed for caution in working with this rough-hewn design. This needle would be sharp and capricious; the cloth unyielding and coarse, and the silken threads that would weave us together would break and cut without notice at my heart and strike at my pride. Seemingly a caricature of the place and time, the A took no notice of my ministrations. When my hand first caressed the generous fabric of youth, the A seemed surprised at being the object of attention and when realizing that a fissure was revealed set his opposing axis firm to keep my intrusions at bay. Sadly the A would never fully realize that I understood and honored the slash within his hard rigid lines.

The designer sometimes makes the critical blunder of thinking he can control the development of his project. I made this mistake with the A. At times I would be driven to throw all caution to the wind and sew until each stitch became hardened with sweat, tears and the gristle of poor timing. The A always beckoned, an unfinished project that offered no rewards for completion, no satisfaction, no prize to proudly hang and admire. The beauty of this project was in the uncompleted stitches, in the anticipation of a strangeness that was all too familiar to the touch. The A called to me and for over 15 years I answered with silken strands tightly binding my heart. As time passes and life becomes messier and messier, the simple joy of the first letter of your alphabet becomes too complicated to revel in. Years of pricks, cuts and roughness had dulled the shimmering glimmer that had led me to the A. It was a design that too many others would carelessly caress without ever taking the time to look beneath the Herculean shell. Never detecting the rich combating lava of sensitivities that threatened to spill forth from the A’s magnificent slash. The never yielding A just crouched behind his brass-knuckled hardness and let the steaming lava burn and tear within his gut. My project was folly so I stuffed it far away from my sentiments and sensitivities. The complexity of the human spirit and the geography of life set our compasses to point in opposite ends of the earth.

Isn’t it funny how rose colored the past becomes, how sharp edges become tattered flannel and aching sorrows transform into downy cotton filled blankets of dulled emotions. The fiery A I burned onto my breast, a place where I impaled my hopes and dreams upon it's sharp crown has become one of those gossamer dreams from my youth. There was no lesson learned from my designs, no great moral to give close to my unsinkable stitching. The branded scars fade and the great healer named Time vanquished the dull aches. As it does for all of us, the beat goes on…. And the A, you ask, what became of my most precious A. In my mind the A remains unchanging, an impenetrable force of life, love, hate and death. He stands tall and blazing red in the hot skies of my mind’s eye but if you were to stop, really stop and be still and look very closely at the A you will see the smoldering trail of honey and salt pouring forth from his wounds of time.

Oil Spill

Let me just start out by saying I suck as a blogger - I could take some lessons from my dear talented friend at www.theoneinheels.com but I long ago decided she can pick up my slack on getting a strong passionate voice out on the things that matter. And of course, she has not let me down. However I felt I needed to join in on the matter of the oil spill.

The Gulf Coast has long been my refuge, my mother still lives on the back bay and many of my friends call it home. My child's godmother lives on an inlet where she and her family have experienced the wonders of dolphins coming up to her dock to give birth. Now I wonder will my little girl only hear of this type of miracle because of the devastation caused by the oil spill in the Gulf?

Most of America doesn't really understand the hard working survivor mentality of the Gulf residents. My mother's family who settled on the Gulf Coast in the 1800s were a scrappy bunch of hard headed salt air lovers. They fished and farmed respecting the land and the Gulf as providers of both food and livelihoods. And they stayed and fought mother nature. A water spout comes ashore and wipes out your home - rebuild it, a hurricane blows in and wipes out your home - rebuild it.

But this is a different type of menace creeping ashore. How does one rebuild from a deadly spill? If the life in the Gulf is killed off then how does the hundred of years of balance between man and sea continue? Look, I know we tipped the scales too far this time with the Drill Baby Drill mentality and our endless dependence on oil. I have felt the greasy weight of guilt pushing down on me every time I fire up the ignition on my oil powered car. We can continue to be cogs in this carbon fossil fuel driven machine or we can unite together as a strong voice and demand that gulf drilling be put to a stop and alternative forms of energy be made more affordable and readily available. I realize that it is baby steps but at least I can start by putting down the keys and putting on my walking shoes.

To The Mommy Bloggers

Each time she leaves me it is like a little piece of me turns to ash and crumbles. I can't let her know because I have to strong for her but I wonder if one day in an airport watching her walk down the jet way to fly away from me if I will just fade away, like ashes blown in the wind. I had different dreams for us. You, see I waited to have my baby, I wanted her to have so much more than I did as a child. Not the material things, no, I found out early that the nicest of the nice things don't amount to much if you don't have a loving home. I wanted her to have stability, happy parents, a pet, a neighborhood all enveloping her in a big blanket of love.

I knew she would probably be my only baby, I had waited so long to meet her father only to miscarry and misjudge. She is worth is all, the beautiful little life that danced a disco in my belly and refused to come out until my doctor finally found a way to coax her into this world. Maybe she wanted to stay with me as long as she possibly could because she knew ours would be a future of good-byes.

I chronicled every bit of minutia about her, the squeaks, the expressions, the firsts. She was a wonder to behold, the smartest baby ever, heck, she could even sign kitty and airplane when she was only a few months old. Today, I don't read those journals, I keep them tucked away in a place safe far away from my thoughts to prevent a pity party from taking over and reducing me to hot mess.

When she was four, I discovered blogging and I thought I would put away my purple ink pens and lined paper journals to keep an electronic record of my precious and the joys of motherhood. Across the nation, other mommies shared my thoughts and mommy blogging surpassed personal journaling to become a business entity for a lot of these moms. Me, I quit blogging, took down my site, forgot my password and turned off my feed. When a court of law tells you that they have decided that your baby, your only baby will spend the majority of her time with her father thousands of miles away from you, well you may need some time to go lick your wounds and figure out how to make this part-time mommy thing work for you.

Homeroom mother, Brownie leader, chauffeur, class chaperon, nursemaid - these were the things I aspired to become. The mom who hosted slumber parties and would hang a disco ball in the living room for dance night, not the mom who schleps onto a plane every 6 weeks to spend a precious long weekend with her daughter. You mommy bloggers don't know how good you have it - typing away about your little ones latest antics blissfully cocooned by the sound of your children's voices. Where are the mommy bloggers who write alone waiting, anxiously awaiting, the next time they can smell the sweet smell of sweaty hair and chocolate-coated lips. Do they have to shut it all away in a strong box with a big lock only to be opened when their baby arrives.

Oh the jealousy - reading a mommy blog, passing a school carpool, walking past homes where mommies play with their children in well-lit front rooms. You mommy bloggers have a special gift, the gift of living each and every day with your babies. A gift of never having to suppress your surprise at how much they have grown since you have last seen them, a gift of putting a lost tooth under a pillow, a gift of making them lunch for school each day. It's that minutia that is so special, so precious and so fleeting.

Look, I do count my blessings - she is healthy and thriving and I do get to spend some time with her thanks to joint custody. It makes other mommies uncomfortable when they learn she goes to school somewhere else, at first I thought they were judging me. "She must be a meth addict, hmm, to fat for meth, maybe it's alcohol, or maybe she is insane." But I think it is because they see the little piles of ash and think "that could be me" and want to run least some of that toxic ash float over to cast a dark cloud on their precious.

Driving Miss Fais Doh Daisy

Driving along St. Charles Avenue you will encounter the muses. Erato, Melpomene, and Terpsichore greet you as you follow The Avenue to the river's bend. Along the way a siren awaits, her song so seductive that you will throw yourself in front of a passing car to reach her voice that promises everything you desire. This is my Davis' sister.

The first time I laid eyes on her was at a the Windsor Court High Tea. She arrived in a halo of blue smoke with her tiny body draped in a pink fuchsia flapper dress with a pink marabou feather hat cocked flirtatiously over her silvery eyes. Taking her cues from Daisy Buchanan she was of course fashionably late and like a bird of paradise in a room full of pigeons, she flitted to her seat, pulled out her sterling silver flask and the got the party started. She called herself Sterling and thrilled me with her smokey voice that was filled with money and promises of better things on the horizon.

She was too superficial to be preoccupied with herself and her earthiness transcended her materialism. Like Daisy, she came from a family of careless people, she smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into her vast carelessness. Sterling followed her gilded rule to let other people clean up the mess she had made. And oh, the messes she could make from human hearts to Baccarat crystal all broken with her engraved calling card of nonchalance. Yet somehow her deathless song compelled me to follow her home.

The minuscule foyer in Sterling's flat on Jefferson Avenue was jumbled with discarded gifts from her admirers: European chocolates, antique jewels from Royal Street merchants, and a giant Russian Imperial samovar. Sparse furnishings and an abundance of half-filled wine glasses and over flowing ashtrays comprised her parlor. Designer clothes, most of them gifts from her beaus were stained and strewn everywhere from the rabbit ears on her television to the arms of her chandeliers.

She poured a spilling glass of Beauregard for herself, lit a long cigarette while she stripped down to just her skin. Pulling out her little blue leather diary she reported to me that she had several social dates to prepare for and she wished that I would join her as a driver and companion. I was so distracted by her careless ashing, blatant nakedness and sloshing wine that I agreed to drive her around the city for the evening. She instructed me to find something presentable to wear from her wardrobe while she bathed. The Girbaud jeans and Indian headdress I had selected were not what she had in mind for me, instead we left her home swathed in silk, stone martins and white pumps.

Sterling was and remains a terrible passenger, she insists having all the car windows open, she smokes and ashes incessantly and reaches over to try to grab the steering wheel. Her worse habit is when is throwing her left leg into the driving pit and pushing her foot down on your accelerator foot. The roads of uptown New Orleans are well known for breaking axles and eating mufflers, but Sterling had no care for my car maintenance future, she had men to seduce, wine to drink and gifts to receive awaiting her. I also discovered that along with her impatience, Sterling also gave terrible directions - we ended up speeding through Thomas Housing Projects (in retrospect, she seemed to be recognized by some of the dealers hanging on the corners), crossing the Avenue according to her directions and ended up in the midst of Calliope Project before finally reaching our final destination of Patout's miraculously without being shot.

A table full of European gentlemen greeted her - watching her was a bit like watching Scarlett work the picnic at 12 Oaks prior to the war. She actually sashayed and batted her eyelashes. She ordered for everyone - the most expensive wines, food and of course champagne. She delighted everyone with her polished french and latest thesis on classical rhetoric. Once her gentlemen suitors were plied full of fine Creole cuisine and loads of alcohol she would begin to divest them of their valuables. She would admire a watch, ask to try it on and then somehow forget to return it. Palming a gold nugget bracelet she begin to feel faint and asked me to accompany her to the powder room. Sterling said she was bored and needed to go to her next engagement in French Quarter at Maximo's. It was time for me to drive. Citing motion sickness, Sterling sat in the back of my car and barked out short-cuts to the Quarter.

Upon arriving at Maximo's we were escorted to a table full of Australian tourists, they were a bawdy sort. Sterling transformed from pseudo courtesan to an outback wrangler right before my eyes. She threw off her white shoes and jumped up on the Maximo's bar demanding shots and zydeco music. (note to reader: Maximo's in the 80's was a trendy bistro) She made each of the hulking Aussies join her on the bar lying down while she straddled them and poured liquor straight from the bottle into their open mouths. Suddenly she screamed, "Take me to Tips". This time I have Miss Daisy and 6 large men in my little Honda. All drunk, all yelling, all singing, all throwing my tennis balls from backseat to front seat. I was just trying to stay on the road and off the neutral ground with all of the debauchery taking place within my vehicle.

As I pulled the car to the corner of Napoleon and Tchoup, I could hear the sounds of the Radiators pouring through the side door. Sterling jumped out with her admirers and led them straight to the bar and then to the dance floor. She two-stepped with furs flying around her shoulders, a menthol cigarette in hand and never spilling her glass of wine. She whirled in a silky blur from partner to partner until a dark brute man leaning against the bronze bust of Professor Longhair caught her eye. He was rich, old Garden District money - he wore an expensive seersucker suit from Perlis and immaculate white bucks. Like so many of those uptown men, he looked like he could throw a mean punch and never wrinkle his Brooks Brother shirt. She fais-doh-dohed over to him and they huddled together as intimates sharing a secret dance. I thought I saw a jeweled flash and perhaps a large amount of currency pass to her hand as she draped her arms around his broad shoulders.

I look back over my shoulder at the drunk Australian tourists, wondering how many hundreds of dollars they must have spent tonight on entertaining Sterling. As I begin to feel a bit sorry for their empty wallets, I saw Sterling disappear in the wet New Orleans night with the dark Garden District hulk. Her charms spent and her appetite sated for the evening, she left with her new prizes to toss carelessly about until the next time she would go for a drive.

The Crescent City Cadger

I am sure that the writers for Treme must have known him. He probably hitched a ride with them uptown, made them buy his dinner at Patois, took them on a bar tour, then borrowed twenty dollars before hopping out of their cab on the corner of Magazine and Napoleon while pocketing all of their cigarettes and weed. My Davis.

For me, it all started when his sister called me because she was tripping on mushrooms with her current beau and needed me to drive them in her late model Mercedes (complete with shrunken heads hanging from the rear-view mirror) to her home on Jefferson Avenue. Being the sober friend has it's advantages in these situations because when you suggest to the trippers that a game of homemade twister is just what the doctor ordered, they are all over it, and also all over the homemade twister board. But that's another story...

He showed up in the midst of the mushroom fueled game. Having just finished a gig on Oak Street, he reeked of hemp, Marlboro reds and absinthe. He was surly in his lack of confidence but genius in his talent. I took one look at his questionable hygiene, quavering physique and pearly whites and I fell - hook, line and stinker.

We talked all night about Jesuits, Jazz and Jung. He commenced to enthrall me with his illusions and superstitions. He was jacked up on nicotine and caffeine causing Terre Ferma to shift and stars to collide and softly tumble down around his shoulders in a haze of bong smoke. Misunderstood not a misanthrope as so many perceived him to be - he wanted to keep the soul of the Crescent City pure - his town, his music, his art, his drugs.

As the dawn slivered through the plantation shades refracting off the homemade twister board, I felt sad that our evening was going to end. Would I see him again? Little did I know that my Davis would haunt me for the next 20 years.

Looking back, I realize that I met my Davis at the height of his game. His band had signed a record deal, he license was valid, and his pot was Jamaican. He even slept in a bed with sheets, thanks to his good fortune of being able to squat in his mother's empty home on the Avenue. And, yes, he called, he loved the way I smelled and the way I laughed at his wry observations. I dug his shows, his drummer's mania infused with his soulful glances cast my way. He was a musician, I was a painter, we were in the best city in the world - ah, that crazy love.

Crazy love became just plain crazy. My Davis fought with his band mates and quit the band this led to six months of him drinking black coffee, chain smoking and mooching money. He may have been poor and of questionable hygiene but he never changed his standards. How could I not deeply love a man who would live by candlelight so that he could still eat oysters brochette at Galatoire's? The bitter grounds that littered the kitchen counters seeped into our love. Basically, I was tired of supporting his fine-dining, daiquiri-loving ass and the humiliation of being the main squeeze of the Crescent City Cadger was bruising my pride. One brisk fall morning, I left a wad of cash on the bedside table, packed my gym bag and went back to my carriage house. My bed was empty but at least I could shower without fear of fungus and my elderly Blanche du Bois neighbor was ready to medicate me with Gin Ramos Fizzes. My broken heart was quickly healed by visiting Australian boys who two-stepped through the warehouse district with me.

My Davis lay dormant through until the holiday season. On a fine December evening I wandered home from caroling on the bayou and there he was straddling my barstool, drinking my WhoDat Champagne and eating my crab bisque while drumming a riff with my antique candlesticks. Rather than just dropping my cash in the Salvation Army's red bell ringer bucket, I pledged my hard-earned dollars to the Davis Christmas Fund. We traipsed through the holidays attending parties, picking mistletoe and burning the yule log on the levees. Twelfth Night rolled around and he pinched a tuxedo from his dad's closet so we laissez bon temps rouler through the Carnival Season. We would party all night and I would get up go to work and my Davis would spend the day drinking black tar coffee and littering my home with greasy Mother's wax paper and Hubig's pineapple pie wrappers. I knew what I had to give up for the Lenten Season.

My Davis left on Ash Wednesday, along with all of my loose change and several pieces of jewelry and silver. It took a lot of time to wash Davis outta my hair and out of all the other crevices that he had slipped and dipped into. Once cleansed, I left New Orleans to start an advertising agency.

On the Gulf Coast, work became my life. I ate, slept, drank and pub-crawled with my agency. My Mac was my best boyfriend. The briny air carried the scent of me earning money all the way to my Davis. He hot-wired his brother's car and drove east until he found me. Suddenly my cute little beach-side duplex was given the air of the 70s, thanks to my Davis' bong. He claimed this time he would earn his keep. He planned on giving drum lessons and illustrating books, needless to say all he did was drink my ovaltine and eat my boca burgers. In a moment of desperation, I called his mother to come get him. SHE TOLD ME TO KEEP HIM! Somehow I managed to evict him but through a rather unclear series of events, he ended up living across the street in the home of an elderly man. He would stand on the curb, drumming on the wrought iron fence serenading my wallet and wine rack. So I moved - again.

Minnesota was too far to hitchhike and I don't think my Davis could get his hands on a heavy coat. However upon my return to the South, there he was waiting for me on Magazine Street, sniffing my hair and asking me to buy him a cocktail. He was drumming again and living uptown. Katrina had come and left her black kiss on the city but he was still standing waiting to cadge his next good bottle of Shiraz.